


The Paper Animatronix

by AlmesivaMoonshadow



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alienation, Androids, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Biblical References, Child Prodigy, Childhood Memories, Creation, Evil Genius, God Complex, Identity Issues, Introvert, Isolation, Latin, Light Angst, Other, References to Depression, Superiority Complex, musings, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmesivaMoonshadow/pseuds/AlmesivaMoonshadow
Summary: The very first time Elijah Kamski created something only partially alive was the first time he felt what it means to be truly aliened from everyone else who never could.





	The Paper Animatronix

_-"To stand in heaven, means to stand alone._  
_Because, the only force capable of enduring the_  
_overwhelming presence of a God, is solitude."-_

**A.M.**

* * *

 

 

 

 

Elijah was always sort of an outsider - from the very beginning.  
Ever since he showed signs of a keener intellect - he was deemed inappropriate.  
Children his age found him off-putting, their parents, pretentious - his teachers, difficult and overly inquisitive.  
Even his own father and mother - their initial beaming pride soon turned into concern.  
Their concern, into worry, the worry, into shame, shame into fear and disgust.  
Yes, he was bright, but was there such a thing as being too bright?  
Far too genius, far too advanced for comfort and common norm?  
Too much to handle all at once - difficult to swallow?  
Mother wanted someone with an A grade from math.  
Father wanted someone who's gonna enlist in a good college or two.  
No parent or caregiver dreamed of, well - a kid like Elijah - and Elijah was aware of that.  
They were all trapped within their small limitations, small worlds - tight - confined - limiting - claustrophobic.

 

 

 

 

And then there was the subject of envy and the anxiety that comes with faced with unfamiliar.

 

The Romans even had an old saying for it;

 

_Timor rerum ignotarum._

 

Fear of the unknown.

 

He was that unknown, it seems.

 

 

 

Yes, and the jealousy - one of humanity's primal, ingrained, mortal sins - stronger then their very logic, sense and reason - an opium for the religious - the opium for the masses - obviously, it was tacky, arrogant even, to claim that people were, in all generation groups almost, whoever had the chance to interact with him in those days, jealous of Elijah and whatever freakishness marked him so damn special, but Kamski knew that that was the case ever since kindergarten, when during one particularly peculiar incident when during a rather innocent, downright mundane project involving creating simplistic objects made out of paper and learning how to differentiate squares from circles and triangles - a mix of basic origami folding or whatever else occupied the toddler's attention long enough between the slacking teacher's idle gossip and the occasional check-up on the children huddled around together, struggling not to recreate even the most utilitarian of forms - but, to Elijah - to Elijah it came naturally - it was like some manner of magic inside of his fingers - deeper still, the marrow of his very bones moving. He wasn't sure how he did it or why he did it - but the thing he created was incredible all on it's own. It had a face. It had limbs. It had a torso. A small paper handle on the back allowing the tiny, makeshift arms and legs to move up and down with a simple move, it had bottom eyes and it had scrappy, improvised hair ripped at the top because scissors weren't yet allowed - for practicality and safety reasons. Amateurish. Bulky. Unrefined. But it was his. It was the first.

 

 

 

It was a caricature human being and he was only three when he made it.

 

 

 

_-"Who helped you with this!? Where did you copy it from!?"-_

 

 

 

The shrill, high-pitched voice of one the annoyed daycare teachers questioned in a sort of dazed shock you'd only observe after someone's witnessed something completely and utterly unbelievable and supernatural - the type of reaction Elijah would see time and again in the years to come. He felt it, there and then - was hard to explain how or why - but he just felt it - as natural as taking baby steps - in his innocent, childish mind that couldn't entirely comprehend what he did that was so very wrong to deserve the scorn of his elders and the confused, doe-like stares of all the boys and girls all around him. This wasn't the first time he was reprimanded for taking, well, artistic licenses or indulging in creative misdemeanors, and it certainly won't be the last time and after each and every one of these confrontations he was starting to realize his peers liked him less and less. Less toys shared. Less children inviting him to play. Less smiles. Less of them wanting to sit with him. Less hand holding. Less of everything. Directly mimicking the disdain the adults had for him and implementing it in their own behavior - monkey see, monkey do - almost as if thought they unanimously agreed through some hive-mind mentality, that Elijah Kamski - endearingly referred to as 'Lijah, was a weirdo, an anomaly and the bad seed of the bunch and that he should be pushed to the margins at any cost lest he infect them all with whatever he was suffering from. He was smart - overly smart and something about was just irritating. Frustrating to them. It was practically inconceivable to them that someone that young could possibly create something on his own without plagiarizing it or having someone help him with it.

 

 

 

_-"From my head."-_

 

 

 

Elijah answered sincerely, boldly even, feeling that he did nothing worthy of shame and scorn, child that he was - he merely made something, thanks to his own imagination and creativity, not understanding how advanced he was, not realizing none of the other kids could - and that was the beginning of the end. Since then, and while it wasn't blatantly obvious, he was viewed like someone that has an incurable disease, almost - a chain reaction of disaster, like dominoes collapsing throughout the years - his teachers had him sent to school therapists and councilors for regular chats which were anything but inconspicuous in order to find out what the hell was wrong with him, he was observed by his professors for any potential misdemeanor, to his peers he was nothing more then a geeky, nerdy, bookish stereotype they'd rather avoid and mock then spend time with willingly unless they have the need to seek out aid for whatever assignment and the go back to ignoring him, he was hardly the most popular person at collage parties and the solitude crept in, like smog through the cracks of an open window. Loneliness. Yes - Elijah read somewhere that it's lonely on top. It was lonely for him even when he was at the bottom. Or in the middle. Or anywhere down the line. Often times wondering if life would've been any different if he was born, well - average. Not even impaired on an intellectual level - just basic. Ordinary. Mundane. Like everyone else. Would he be happier? Would he be more content?

 

 

 

 

To blend in with the crowd of billions - there might've been a certain sense of relief in that, no?

At least he'd be accepted, embraced, loved, spoken to like one of the herd.

He could've settled down, have a nice, white pickled fence and invite the neighbors to a Sunday barbecue.

 

 

 

No.

 

Never.

 

 

But, in 2017, aged fifteen, the first thing he almost ritualistically destroys is the old, now crumpled up, shapeless, genderless, nameless and faceless paper contraption he created as a toddler and had saved somewhere as a homage to his own progress, forgotten somewhere beneath a staggering pile of books, encyclopedia, research papers, discarded ideas and drafts - bury the old, introduce the new - he sets it on fire, a crude, borderline medieval method of destruction hardly befitting the youngest CEO of the decade if not the century - the face of glossy magazines and talk-shows and countless news articles - curiously watches it burn up quickly and shrivel up into a black mass of ashy, smoking garbage like some matter of ancient alchemist trying to turn iron into gold - to Elijah, the act itself is prophetic and deeply symbolic - with the first preparations to introduce androids - mass produced - made widely available to the every-man - the every-man he strived to be - the every-man who found him strange and unusual and off-putting - a form of artificial intelligence in his company which he very fittingly named Cyberlife, he feels his paper doll is obsolete and not before long, it's merely a handful of searing, corroded, blackened dust and nothing more. It's a like phoenix ready to rise, that pile of dust, he imagines. So, when he leaves his old room where the christening of fire took place and heads for Detroit that very year, it's almost like a transformation in the chemical sense.

 

 

 

 

He realizes he was probably never accepted because he was always meant to be so much more.  
He was meant to transcend humanity and ascend to as close to virtual godhood as one possibly could.  
He was not being arrogant - he was being analytical, a realist - and the realness of the matter that he was different.  
And the subconcience of everyone beneath him caught unto it, like a radar catching a signal it cannot recognize from outer space - sonic sound.  
Alerting them to his peculiar presence like prey is altered to the haunting, all-consuming scent of a predator from afar.  
It all came from his head, he reminded himself then - and his potential was hidden in his name all along;

 

 

 

_Elijah._

 

The name of a prophet.

 

 

 

The burning scent of the discarded paper animatronix still his nostrils as an omen of promise as the highway towards Detroit opened up in front of him.


End file.
